KFSN-TV
KFSN-TV, channel 30, is an owned-and-operated television station of the Walt Disney Television-owned American Broadcasting Company, located in Fresno, California, USA. The station's transmitter is located in Meadow Lakes, California. Its signal covers the Central San Joaquin Valley and the mountain ranges flanking either side, including the Sierra Nevada mountains and Yosemite National Park. The station serves Fresno, Madera, Merced, Mariposa, Tulare, and Kings counties. History Following the Federal Communications Commission's 1952 lifting of the four-year-long freeze on awarding television licenses, two Fresno radio stations -- KARM (1430 AM, now KFIG) and KFRE (940 AM, now KYNO) competed for the chance to operate a station on channel 12, the sole VHF allocation given to Fresno. KFRE won the license, and the station signed on the air for the first time on May 10, 1956 as KFRE-TV. The station is Fresno's third-oldest television outlet, and upon signing-on KFRE-TV took the CBS affiliation from KJEO-TV (channel 47, now KGPE). The KFRE stations were acquired by Triangle Publications in 1959. On February 17, 1961, KFRE-TV reluctantly moved to UHF channel 30 to make Fresno an all-UHF market under orders from the FCC. In was known by the term deintermixture, the move was made for the purpose of leveling the playing field and eliminating the potential of unfair competition between VHF and UHF. A similar situation occurred in nearby Bakersfield where that city's lone VHF station, KERO-TV on channel 10, moved to UHF channel 23 in 1963. The move of KFRE-TV to channel 30 opened up channel 12 for use by KCOY-TV in Santa Maria, which went on the air in 1964. Capital Cities Communications acquired the KFRE stations from Triangle in 1971 as part of Triangle's exit from broadcasting. The new owners sold off the AM and FM radio stations as a condition of the purchase and kept the TV station, changing its call letters to KFSN-TV in April 1971. (The KFRE-TV calls are now used on Fresno's CW affiliate on channel 59; that station is unrelated to the current KFSN-TV). On March 18, 1985, Capital Cities announced it was purchasing ABC. Nearly six months later, on September 9, 1985, KFSN-TV traded networks with KJEO and became an ABC affiliate. The transaction was finalized on January 3, 1986, making channel 30 an ABC-owned station. In 1996, the Walt Disney Company acquired Capital Cities/ABC. The station is one of three network owned television stations in the Fresno television market; the other two are Univision's KFTV (channel 21) and Telemundo's KNSO (channel 51). However, the latter station is managed by a third party via a time brokerage agreement. The station produces the programs Motion and My Family Recipe Rocks for the Live Well Network. Digital television The station's digital signal is multiplexed: On April 27, 2009 the station added Live Well Network to digital subchannel 30.2. Analog-to-digital conversion KFSN-TV shut down its analog signal, over UHF channel 30, on June 12, 2009 at noon, as part of the DTV transition in the United States. The station had been broadcasting its pre-transition digital signal over VHF channel 9, but returned to channel 30 for its post-transition operations. News operation The station's newscasts are not branded Eyewitness News, nor does it use the Eyewitness News music package, like several other ABC-owned stations. Instead, KFSN retains the Action News branding (ABC30 Action News,) along with sister station WPVI (channel 6) in Philadelphia. In 2003, the station began pooling resources with sister stations KABC-TV (channel 7) in Los Angeles and KGO-TV (channel 7) in San Francisco to hire a full-time reporter and photographer to staff a Sacramento bureau following Arnold Schwarzenegger's election as Governor during the 2003 California recall election. KFSN's newscasts have used the Action News name and format made famous at sister station WPVI since the 1970s. The station has led the news ratings in the San Joaquin Valley for more than 30 years. Its 5 PM newscast, "Live at Five" frequently attracts more viewers than all other local stations combined. On April 23, 2007 starting with the 5 p.m. newscast, KFSN-TV became the sixth ABC owned-and-operated station to produce and broadcast their newscasts in High Definition following their sister stations KABC-TV, WPVI-TV, WABC-TV, WLS-TV and KGO-TV and update its branding to ABC 30 Action News HD. Since 1994, KFSN has used the original version of 615 Music's "News One" music package, also used at the time by sister-station, KGO-TV. KFSN has dominated the local news viewership ratings in the San Joaquin Valley for decades, dating back to its pre-ABC-merger years as a CBS affiliate. On May 25, 2011, KFSN has announced that it will have a new 4 p.m. newscast starting September 12 (immediately following Oprah reruns). This follows the trend of the four other sister-stations (WABC-TV, WPVI-TV, WTVD & KGO) that have started its new 4 p.m. newscast after Oprah's final first-run episode. News/station presentation Newscast titles *''Channel 30 Action News'' (1976–1996) *''ABC-30 Action News'' (1996–present) Station slogans *''The Valley's #1 Newscast'' (1986–1994) *''Stand Up and Tell'em Fresno's Great!'' (1985–1994; used during period station used Frank Gari's "Turn To News") *''You and Channel 30, We've Got the Touch'' (1983–1985; localized version of CBS ad campaign) *''You'll Love It on Channel 30'' (1985–1986; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''Together on Channel 30'' (1986–1987; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''Something's Happening on Channel 30'' (1987–1989; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''Fresno's Watching Channel 30'' (1989–1992; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''If It's Fresno, It Must Be Channel 30'' (1992–1993; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''Number One in Central California'' (1994–present) *''TV is Good, on Channel 30'' (1997–1998; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''We Love TV, on Channel 30'' (1998–1999; localized version of ABC ad campaign) *''Live. Local. Latebreaking.'' (2000–present) On-air staff Current on-air staff (as of August 2012) Anchors *'Warren Armstrong' - weeknights at 5, 6 and 11 p.m. *'Liz Harrison' - weeknights at 11 p.m.; also reporter *'Jason Oliveira' - weekday mornings "ABC 30 Action News AM Live" (4:30-7 AM); weekdays at 11 AM. *'Margot Kim' - weekday mornings "ABC 30 Action News AM Live" (4:30-7 AM) *'Graciela Moreno' - weekdays at 4; weeknights at 6 and 6:30 p.m. *'Nancy Osborne' - weeknights at 5 p.m. *'Christine Park' - weekdays at 11 AM and 4 p.m.; also consumer reporter *'Amanda Perez' - weekends at 6 and 11 p.m.; also weeknight reporter *'Sara Sandrik' - weekend mornings at 6 and 8 AM; also North Valley bureau chief *'Dale Yurong' - weeknights at 6:30 p.m.; also reporter ABC30 AccuWeather Team *'Angelo Stalis' - chief weathercaster; weeknights at 5, 6 and 6:30 p.m. *'Doug Collins' (AMS Member; NWA Member) - meteorologist; weekday mornings "ABC 30 Action News AM Live" (4:30-7 AM) *'Kevin Musso' (AMS and NWA Seals of Approval) - meteorologist; weekdays at 4; weeknights at 11 p.m. *'Reuben Contreras' - meteorologist; weekends; also news producer Sports team *'Tommy Tran ' - sports director; weeknights at 6 and 11 p.m. *'David Bataller' - sports anchor; weekends at 6 and 11 p.m.; also sports reporter Reporters *'Mariana Jacob' - general assignment reporter *'Linda Mumma' - general assignment reporter *'Tony Capozzi' - legal and political consultant *'Gene Haagenson' - general assignment reporter *'Amanda Venegas' - AM Live morning reporter *'Corin Hoggard' - court reporter *'Nannette Miranda' - Sacramento bureau chief *'Rick Montanez' - general assignment reporter *'Jessica Peres' - South Valley bureau chief *'Gaby Rodriguez' - traffic reporter *'Sontaya Rose' - investigative reporter *'Stephanie Stone' - general assignment reporter Former on-air staff Laura Diaz - anchor (1981–1983; later at KCBS/KCAL in Los Angeles; now at rival KTTV) Logos Kfre3071.jpg Kfsn_1970.jpg Kfsn1.png KFSN-TV_Channel_30_It_Must_Be_ABC_1992.jpg KFSN_1996.png Kfsn.jpg Kfsn fresno.png References * BroadcastPioneers.com: A History of the WFIL Stations - accessed on January 20, 2006 External links *ABC30.com - Official Website Category:ABC